[M]inisters are a merchandize one cannot lay one’s hands on as easily as it were to be desired.
John Calvin, Letters Volume 4, Page 320.
Monthly Archives: December 2016
Canadian Christians: Dwarfs, Deadheads or Douglas Firs?
It’s really encouraging to see all of the good and godly resources that are available to Canadian Christians today.
Consider what a blessing it is to have Tim Challies writing and resourcing us, assisting in the discipleship of Christians all over the world. There are new initiatives like The Gospel Coalition Canada getting off the ground that intend to help Canadian churches grow in depth and unity. Good publishers print more books than mere mortals can attempt to read.
But for all of our resources, when we look at ourselves with a properly Canadian self-criticism, we can see that we’re not really where we ought to be in spiritual maturity. Our churches could be so much sounder, our prayers could be more frequent, our witness could be more winsome and consistent and our thoughts of God more clear and honouring to Him.
As usual, JI Packer has crafted a perfect picture of the contrast between first, what we look like today, and second, what we could aspire to under God’s grace.
Dwarfs and Deadheads
First of all, Packer says that the contemporary church is so affected by affluence that it has been making, “dwarfs and deadheads of us all.” [1]
With gospel-centred this, and grace-based that, it is jolting to think that we’re not really very far along. It can sober us up to think that our misplaced priorities, worship of glass ‘screens’ and affluent anxieties have kept us stunted. All of these God-centred resources are helpful, and we should praise God for the blessing of them. But we need to be careful about being too big for our britches. God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble (James 4.6).
One of the graces which God gives, is the memory of faithful believers who have gone before us. The biblical summary of this practice is found in Hebrews 11 where the author reminds his readers of the example of believers who have gone before them. Their historical example is intended to be a ‘useable past’ to encourage renewed faith and obedience.
Redwoods
That was Packer’s second point in the contrast. If we are dwarfs and deadheads, we need to look at some examples of folks who weren’t. So Packer turned to the English Puritans. In doing so, he crafted one of the most picturesque descriptions of Christian maturity which has come down to us:
On a narrow strip of the northern California coastline grow the giant Redwoods, the biggest living things on earth. Some are over 360 feet tall, and some trunks are more than 60 feet round. They do not have much foliage for their size; all their strength is in those huge trunks, with foot-thick bark, that rise sheer for almost half their height before branching out. Some have actually been burned, but are still alive and growing. Many hundreds of years old, over a thousand in some cases, the Redwoods are (to use a much-cheapened word in its old, strict, strong sense) awesome. They dwarf you, making you feel your smallness as scarcely anything else does. Great numbers of Redwoods were thoughtlessly felled in California’s logging days, but more recently they have come to be appreciated and preserved, and Redwood parks are today invested with a kind of sanctity. A 33-mile road winding through Redwood groves is fittingly called the Avenue of the Giants.
California’s Redwoods make me think of England’s Puritans, another breed of giants who in our time have begun to be newly appreciated. Between 1550 and 1700 they too lived unfrilled lives in which, speaking spiritually, strong growth and resistance to fire and storm were what counted.
Packer then summarized the appeal of this kind of maturity which the Puritans had:
As Redwoods attract the eye, because they overtop other trees, so the mature holiness and seasoned fortitude of the great Puritans shine before us as a kind of beacon light, overtopping the stature of the majority of Christians in most eras, and certainly so in this age of crushing urban collectivism, when Western Christians sometimes feel and often look like ants in an anthill and puppets on a string.
Douglas Firs
In Canadian churches we can pray that we would grow more like Redwoods and less like deadheads, as we seek to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with our own needy generation. Maybe a Canadian way to think about this Puritan-like goal would be to swap the picture of Redwoods for Douglas Firs.
Just stop and imagine what it could be like if local churches in Canada were filled with people who were like spiritual Douglas Firs. Not one or two “Big Lonely Dougs” (like the tallest one in Port Renfrew), but a spiritual forest of godly people, with new and old growth climbing skyward. We know it will only happen if our churches send their roots deep, and we withstand many trials of wind and fire. But let us hope and pray that God would grow the church in Canada “to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4.13).
[1] J. I. Packer, A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1990), 11–12.
Bucked Off
I’m getting too old for this. Or that’s what I thought when I slowly rolled myself into the half ton as we went to gather cattle.
It all started fairly innocent. My brother and I were assembling horses for all of the kids to ride, his son and daughter and my two boys. All told there were 12 creatures attempting to work together. If it was a military operation you’d liken it less to D-Day than to Custer’s Last Stand.
We finally got all of the kids mounted, re-assured in their anxieties and somewhat fitted into their saddles. Then my brother saddled his new horse, and only I was left.
Since my niece was riding my horse, the old campaigner Baldy, I was left to choose from the two horses left in the pen. I could take my brother’s old horse Speedlord. He was a now nearly ancient thoroughbred with more grey hair than me. I’d ridden Speedlord a few times over the years, and I remember when we missed a tight right angle to enter a gate and he fell over with myself being flung forward into the newly seeded field. Never was I so thankful for newly tilled dirt.
The other choice was none other than the fabled Strawberry Roan. My brother had recently bought him from a calf roper at an auction. In the show ring a young woman had ridden the Roan and it looked so broke that it was ‘bomb-proof’. That’s the label applied to a horse that is so tamed and trained that a bomb could go off and the horse wouldn’t be phased at all. I was naturally suspicious of the ‘bomb-proof’ claim, but I decided to go with the Roan.
The Roan stood very quietly as I saddled him and fitted the bit to his mouth. I was very attentive to his responses at each point. Would he balk at the tightening of the cinch? Would he rear back at the offer of the bit? He did none of these, standing shiverless just like his reputation claimed.
I still wanted to be careful. As I placed my weight onto the left stirrup I was ready to be flipped backwards if the horse reared, or to be off-balance if the horse lunged forward. But he didn’t move. He didn’t even shift his weight. He seemed to have been ready to accept me as a rider without any discomfort.
I swung my right leg over the saddle and let myself down onto his back. With my full weight on him I thought this would be the beginning of the rodeo if it was ever going to happen.
So for a second I waited. Nothing happened. No shivers. No nervous steps forward. At that point it was clear that either this Roan was as advertised, was completely bomb-proof, and was safe for children, or he was the most cunning critter I’d seen in a long time.
I leaned slightly to tilt the fender of my right stirrup so that I could secure my right foot. I had the relaxation of mind that comes from passing through an anxious experience without mishap. My thoughts turned to the safety of my boys and their cousins. Did I have a warm enough jacket on? I was looking forward to riding a new horse with my family on a blue sky day.
There was no way to anticipate it. It was one of the dirtiest moves I have seen. When I went to put my foot in the right stirrup, the Roan went completely vertical. His front end went straight up so high and fast that I thought he was coming over backwards in that vicious man-killing way.
I was trying to stay with him but the saddle horn had slammed hard into my sternum. He went backwards onto his haunches and I was pushed out the back of him. I couldn’t tell what happened then. He bucked on top of me and I felt a series of hammer blows come down all over me as my face was smashed down into the dirt.
He kept bucking and I crawled to the fence where my sister-in-law looked on in stunned horror. I grabbed onto the drill-stem fence and lifted myself up, turning to see that the Roan was still jump-kicking like the tenth round of the National Finals Rodeo. After he piled me he bucked to the west end of the pen, crashing into my brother’s horse then continued bucking toward the four mounted youngsters passing through them and making all of their horses offer a crow-hop or two. Only Scooter the little bomb-proof stud ignored the blustery Roan.
The bark was knocked off my nose and blood was coming out of it. I was hurt all over and I didn’t even know how bad until later on. My chest hurt, but I didn’t think my sternum was broke. Two neighbours within a few miles had broken their sternums in the last month, one from the slip of a heavy combine wrench, the other in a horrible highway crash. My chest was sore but I didn’t think I broke anything. My right knee hurt. And I had a vague soreness on my left thigh and left elbow.
I didn’t get back on. I didn’t ride. I was feeling sore and old. I chased cows in the pickup. There was still the enjoyment of watching my sons and their cousins and uncle round up the cattle. But my mind was mostly preoccupied with my aching pain and also something else.
I thought a lot about mercy as I motored behind the cows. God was full of mercy to me that afternoon. I could have broken my sternum. Or I could have been paralyzed at the neck. Or I could have been killed while my sons watched. The fact that I was puttering around in the truck was evidence of God’s great mercy to me. As the old prophet Jeremiah said, “his mercies never come to an end, they are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness” (Lamentations 3.22-23).
I knew more clearly than the pain in my chest that God had not given me what I deserved, but instead had continued to give me good things that I didn’t deserve. Even for a pastor who preaches about the grace and mercy of God every Sunday I still had things to learn. And on that afternoon, I was expertly schooled by a powerful sermon ‘preached’ to me by God through that Strawberry Roan.
Between Youth and Old Age
In the span of three days I’ve seen the span of life. From ‘senior-highers’ to seniors, I have been able to travel the path of promise and mortality through the faces of a youth group on Friday night and a senior’s centre on Sunday afternoon.
On Friday, the bustling talk stumbled easily from the bible to Batman and bear attacks. Teenagers can talk a lot to cover up what is going on inside of them, or they can not talk and stay covered that way too.
But sometimes you can see the portal to their souls open up. You see lives filled with promise, hope and ambition. You also see real cares and real fears in search of true security and not the the platitudes they so often see from the adult world.
If someone takes the time to walk through key biblical texts with teens they are extremely smart and have an apprehension of large, significant truths. Youth group should be fun since it’s youth in a group. But if it is biblically thoughtful and faithful, it will also open those spiritual portals into young hearts.
At the other end of the spectrum is the senior’s home and a Sunday afternoon service. As the old hymns sound out in the foyer, the seniors hum and mouth the words or just sway to the melody. Truths long held are refreshed in their memories as they hear those old lyrics. When the request goes out for favourite hymns, the call-back is not only for Christmas traditionals, it’s for ‘the Old Rugged Cross’.
A simple message from a Gospel is offered. There can be no assumptions here. With all religious stripes in attendance, the urgency of sharing the good news of Jesus Christ clearly and succinctly is as needed as ever. So with wit and wisdom a short text is expounded. The seniors are stirred in their faith, if Christ is their own. Others shuffle off before the message is done. Some show their inattention intentionally. Others are inattentive because they can’t help being so.
After the service the children that have attended are star attractions. Each senior has questions for the kids. They also have their own stories to share of when they were that age, or what their own grandchildren are up to. Some seniors are forgotten. Others are just separated from loved ones.
Discussing biblical themes opens up those portals of the soul in seniors too. One widow shared about her time as a missionary in India and all the hours her husband spent trying to keep an old Jeep running. They shared the gospel there. And then again later on in Ontario in parish ministry. She told me her husband studied at Knox College in Toronto. I mentioned the significance of D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ visit to Knox College library where he discovered the writings of BB Warfield. The widow had read Lloyd-Jones and we talked together about the great need for revival in our land. And finally she said that to see revival, we need praying Christians. What a simple and wise description of a disciple of Jesus: ‘a praying Christian’.
So in both of these ministries, the youth group and the senior’s centre, I went to serve, but as usual, I was the one who was blessed. God reminded me of the vigour and enthusiasm of new faith and fresh effort from the youth. But I was also reminded of the seasoned perspective which persevering faith brings. It keeps the main things where they’re supposed to be. Faith in Christ, appeals to God to act for his glory, and finishing well— these are the lessons which I learned from aged saints.
If you are between youth and old age, consider your own need to have your blind-spots exposed and your soul to be expanded. Minister to young and old and enjoy their ministry to you. Remember, we are all interconnected. As Paul said, “the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable” (1 Cor 12. 22).